Pay data
Cosmetology salaries in 2026
Every cosmetology salary here comes from one BLS release, and every one leaves out the same people: anyone renting a chair is self-employed and outside the survey. Read the range rather than the median salary, because in this trade the range is the story.
Published
Edited by Zoe MacDougall, BS in Psychology
How much do cosmetology careers pay in 2026?
Cosmetology careers pay a median salary in 2026 of between $35,760 and $97,150, depending which of the six roles you enter, on May 2025 OEWS figures. The ordering below is not the ordering of how long the licenses take to earn, which is the useful thing to notice about it.
- makeup artist $97,150 $97,150
- salon manager $48,590 $48,590
- esthetician $45,330 $45,330
- barber $38,210 $38,210
- cosmetologist $35,790 $35,790
- nail technician $35,760 $35,760
The makeup artist bar is real and it is misleading. That BLS occupation covers theatrical and performance work, nearly half of it in film and video, and it counts 2,340 people. Makeup done at a salon counter is done by a cosmetologist or by someone self-employed, and neither appears in it. The makeup artist salary page explains what the figure does and does not describe.
What is the hourly pay for cosmetology careers?
Hourly pay for cosmetology careers runs from $17.19 to $46.71 at the median, and the hourly figure is the more honest one in this field. BLS converts between hourly and annual at 2,080 hours, which assumes full-time year-round work that a stylist building a column often is not doing.
| Role | Median hourly | Median salary |
|---|---|---|
| makeup artist | $46.71 | $97,150 |
| salon manager | $23.36 | $48,590 |
| esthetician | $21.79 | $45,330 |
| barber | $18.37 | $38,210 |
| cosmetologist | $17.21 | $35,790 |
| nail technician | $17.19 | $35,760 |
Which cosmetology career pays the highest salary in 2026?
The cosmetology career paying the highest median salary in 2026, setting the makeup artist series aside, is the salon manager at $48,590, followed by the esthetician at $45,330. Both beat the cosmetologist median of $35,790, and the esthetician license takes less time to earn than the cosmetology license in most states.
Every figure in this section is a national median from the May 2025 OEWS release, so the six are comparable with each other.
The medians understate what the trade can pay at the top. The top tenth of cosmetologists earns $71,190, roughly double the median, because commission and a rebooking client base move a stylist up the distribution in a way a salary does not.
How much does cosmetology pay vary by state?
The median cosmetology salary varies by roughly 129% between the best and worst paying states that publish a figure: Washington at $59,510 against Louisiana at $26,030. None of that is adjusted for cost of living, and the states at the top of the list are expensive ones, so the gap in what the money buys is smaller than the gap in the money.
State medians come from the OEWS state estimates for 39-5012, which are published for every state with a large enough sample and withheld elsewhere.
Each salary page carries the full state table for its own role, and each state page carries the local figures alongside that state's licensed schools.
Why do these salary figures leave out self-employed workers?
These salary figures leave out self-employed workers because the OEWS survey collects from employers rather than from workers, so anyone without an employer is outside its frame. BLS states it in its own footnote rather than leaving it to be inferred: estimates do not include self-employed workers.
Most surveys carry that caveat and most of the time it barely matters. Here it does. Renting a chair makes a stylist self-employed for this purpose even though they are in the same salon every day, and BLS counts 15,000 barbers on payrolls nationally, which is plainly a fraction of the people cutting hair in barbershops. Treat every number on this site as the pay of employees, and treat the rest of the trade as unmeasured.
Where can you see the full cosmetology salary range for each role?
Each page carries the full range and the state table for that role. The ranges below are the 10th to 90th percentile from the May 2025 OEWS release.
Sources
- BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 release. National and state medians, percentiles and employment for all six occupations.
- OEWS questions and answers. Survey scope, the exclusion of self-employed workers, and how annual figures are derived from hourly ones.